Conventional pre-manufactured building construction has typically focused on single-story buildings or building room modules or components for incorporation into new or pre-existing building structures. Conventional pre-manufactured building structures have been promoted based on the purported cost, timing, and efficiency advantages of having construction pre-manufactured at manufacturing plants or factories prior to delivery and installation at a building site. Conventional pre-manufactured building structures may be delivered either as complete structures that require minimal installation, e.g., mobile homes, or may be partial building structures or components that require labor and costly on-site installation. Installation of these pre-manufactured structures generally occur using conventional construction techniques.
It is not always cheaper, faster and more efficient to pre-manufacture building structures at manufacturing plants or factories to be delivered to the building site for further installation and/or integration and finishing on site. Handling of such structures can be extremely difficult, time-intensive and cost-prohibitive due to weight, bulk, and craning issues. Shipping modular structures or spaces can raise transportation issues due to weight and space problems. Due to the size of some building structures, transport may be inefficient as trucks may only fit one to two modules for delivery to a construction site. Huge cranes may be required to lift the modules to and from the trucks, or other transport means, at the manufacturing plants as well as the building sites.
With regard to multi-story building construction, on-site construction is conventionally preferred over use of pre-manufactured constructs because pre-manufactured structures are not typically adapted for building multi-story structures.
Conventional lift-slab construction for building multi-story buildings involves the lifting of heavy slabs by strand jacks located on top of columns. After the slab is lifted into position, it must be secured to the supporting columns which are typically located underneath a lifted slab. Securing such lifted slabs requires construction workers to undesirably and unsafely engage in the dangerous activity of working underneath heavy unsecured slabs in order to adequately secure the slabs to the columns. Such unsecured slabs may fall and crush or kill persons located underneath the slab.
The present invention utilizes pre-manufactured structures together with a lift-slab building process to overcome the limitations of utilizing pre-manufactured structures when constructing multi-story buildings.
The present invention offers several advantages over known construction systems and methods in addition to adapting the concept of pre-manufactured structures for use in multi-story building construction.
Advantages of the present invention include increased ease and efficiency of construction, reduced construction time, reduced construction cost, minimal use of scaffolding, minimal use of field welding, safer construction, higher quality construction, construction of a consistent quality, the practice of more environmentally sound construction practices including “green” building construction, reduced maintenance costs, increased ease of access to intelligently designed building spaces for residential, institutional and/or commercial use, the ready ability to permit limited interior space and finishing details customization by the governments, municipalities, townships, builders, consumers, occupants and/or other purchasers or users of these buildings, the ready ability to manage the cost, delivery, timing, and experience expectations of governments, municipalities, townships, builders, consumers, occupants and/or other purchasers or users of these buildings due to the buildings' familiar and repeated pre-manufactured components and the ability to use experience gained by virtue of constructing other similar buildings in accordance with the present invention.